TechniCity - Project Proposal 

 

BE YOUR CITY a platform to empower citizens 

Fabrício Ferreira April 2015 

 

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a process of participatory urbanism regarding democratic

decision-making, in which citizens decide how to allocate a part of the public budget. It gives the

"ordinary people" the chance to identify, discuss, and decide on public spending projects,

allowing them to be an active part of the cities’ development. When PB is taken seriously and

based on mutual trust, both local governments and citizens can benefit equally.

The first full participatory budgeting process was held in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989.

Shortly after, it spread to other cities in the world. But only in 2006, the first e-PB took place in

Belo Horizonte (BH), Brazil. People could vote on a website for a project related to their

neighbourhood. After 2006, merely two more e-PB took place in BH (last one in 2011). 

 

1. TOPIC 

I explored how technology can be used to improve participatory urbanism by making                         

e-Participatory Budgeting more frequent, reliable, engaging, fair, and efficient in my city. 

2. WHERE 

  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belo_Horizonte 

 

As mentioned, I explored the topic in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It is the sixth largest city in                                 

Brazil. It was planned in 1890 to become the capital of its state, Minas Gerais. The city is built                                     

on several hills and is completely surrounded by mountains. 

According to the statistics, since 1993, only 370.000 people were part of the PB in the city                                 

(less than 15% of the population). With the e-PB, the number raised to 700.000, which is 28%                                 

in total. Around R$ 1.4 billion has been invested in security, urbanism, public health,                           

education, sports, culture, infrastructure, environment and other affairs so far. 

 

 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belo_Horizonte 

 

BH has a history of failed infrastructure projects. During the 2014 World Cuptwo people died                               

and 19 were injured when an overpass under construction collapsed on top of a car, two                               

trucks, and a bus. The city needs projects primarily in public transportation, security, and                           

urban planning. 

 Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2014/article-2680961 

 

3. WHAT 

There are many ways and tools to support public engagement in cities, as we saw in the                                 

fourth week of Technicity. I also found two other courses where I collected information:                           

"Engaging Citizens: A Game Changer for Development" and "Metaliteracy: Empowering                   

Yourself in a Connected World". As we saw how important engaging is for urban                           

improvements, this report will focus mainly on e-PB (electronic or digital Participatory                       

Budgeting) in Belo Horizonte and the final product proposed. 

Budgeting is one of the most delicate matters to deal with. In Brazil, unfortunately, corruption                             

and unplanned projects are quite common, which makes citizens angry and hopeless.                       

Everyday we provide money for the government without noticing: taxes, taxes and taxes. If I                             

stop to think about it, the toothpaste I bought last week, around 30% of it went directly to                                   

the government. Summing all toothpastes sold in the last year, I bet it's a lot of money.                                 

Basically we provide money to a small group of people, who work for the City Hall (if we                                   

focus on the city area only) and they decide what to do with it. Most of the time, they base on                                         

their experience and what they think it is priority, but not our needs, not what we want.                                 

Frustrating, no? 

According to the Oxford Dictionary, frustration is the feeling of being upset or annoyed as a                               

result of being unable to achieve something. Frustration is followed by hopelessness and                         

then indifference. All this feelings make cities hostile places, where people don't feel                         

welcomed or part of it, depreciating the environment. For these reasons, participatory                       

budgeting makes people more aware about urban decisions and becoming active parts of                         

the society. When you feel part of something, you care and you want the best for it. This is                                     

what we want for our cities. 

e-Participatory Budgeting in Belo Horizonte 

Belo Horizonte was the first city to use an online platform for Participatory Budgeting, in                             

2006. This first edition had more than 170.000 votes and 9 projects chosen, summing almost                             

R$ 25 million. To increase participation, 152 movable digital inclusion centers were available                         

to the population along with community telecentres, spread in the city serving as voting                           

areas. 

In 2008 happened the second e-PB. This time the citizens had the chance to choose one out                                 

of five transportation projects, costs over R$ 50 million each, related to road work. The five                               

choices were studied and proposed by a engineering company. It was also possible to vote                             

by the phone. The third edition (2011) had 45 proposed projects. Each citizen could vote for                               

one out of five projects of each nine areas of the city. The last e-PB was in 2013 where the                                       

number of participants decreased 93% compared to the average of other years. It was not                             

well broadcasted, I reckon, which explains why just a few citizens voted. 

 

Concluded projects around the city. More information (only in Portuguese) can be found in 

http://gestaocompartilhada.pbh.gov.br/sites/gestaocompartilhada.pbh.gov.br/files/flash/painel_op_sala_de_situacao.swf 

 

 

 

Analysing the data it is possible to infer that e-PB doesn't have a pattern in Belo Horizonte                                 

regarding period, projects and resources used. The budget suffered alterations during the                       

construction work execution, i.e., the resources consumed extrapolated the initial project                     

costs. This lack of standardization makes the process unreliable, where citizens are not sure                           

if one project would cost more (money and time) compared to the others. e-PB has much                               

more engagement, since online platform is easier to use, whilst not as frequent as PB. The                               

investment for PB is much higher than e-PB, which brings a contradiction: more money for                             

projects voted for less people. 

According to the website of the City Hall, every edition there are 16 steps they follow to make                                   

an e-PB possible: 

1. Bidding to define which companies will be responsible for the platform design and                           

other needed services (phone, SMS, etc.); 

2. Obtain database with voters details (who can vote?); 

3. Choose the projects by the City Hall; 

4. Structure security mechanisms for the voting; 

5. Development of the online application; 

6. Structure databases; 

7. Contract company to design the site and other services required for each edition; 

8. Digital inclusion; 

9. Map public voting points around the city; 

10. Train people involved on the process; 

11. e-PB mobilization plan; 

12. e-PB dissemination plan; 

13. Official voting opening; 

14. Process evaluation meetings throughout the voting period; 

15. Official voting closing; 

16. Official result disclosure. 

It shows that City Hall is responsible for deciding the projects and they also need to pay,                                 

every edition, for outsourced services (website, voting system, training). With the product                       

proposed in this report, it won't be necessary to bear such costs since the system will work                                 

continuously. 

Other engagement mean 

In 2011, the City Hall of Belo Horizonte created a special department to deal with                             

collaborative management. This department aims to organise, expand, integrate and                   

optimise every kind of public engagement on the administration of the city, improving the                           

collaboration amongst citizens, city hall and city. It gives governors an opportunity to                         

dialogue with people and understand our needs, enhancing opportunity equality,                   

transparency and open access to information of governmental decisions. 

Although the collaborative management department sounds good, it is not diffused. Just a                         

selected people attend to the meetings since the City Hall does not use effective means of                               

contact. I attended to an event about cycle routes and it is not really open to discussion.                                 

They presented the project, which was already planned and had a date to start, but they did                                 

not contact the citizens, nor even a few cycling groups that also attended. It was not a real                                   

dialogue, and it was really frustrating because it lacks real collaboration. 

 

4. WHO 

For this project I made a survey shared on Facebook with people that lives in Belo Horizonte.                                 

I tried to get different profiles, from all ages since everyone is affected by public decisions.                               

The results are presented below. 

 

 

5. HOW 

a. Data Analysis: 

Through the gathered data from survey and previous research, I came up with statements,                           

related to Belo Horizonte, I used as guideline for my project: 

1. e-PB is easier for citizens than PB; 

2. More people get involved in e-PB than in PB; 

3. Citizens are not content with the current system of decision making; 

4. Citizens approve initiatives related to e-PB; 

5. The current PB and e-PB system don't follow the city/citizen needs; 

b. Design: 

The intention for this project is to create an accessible and secure platform, with social                             

networks integration, where citizens would feel more inclined to be part in e-Participatory                         

Budgeting. A platform that open discussion among citizens, and stop this pattern of                         

participatory budgeting once in a couple of years. The discussion should be constant,                         

citizens have to opine on projects and require improvements.   

c. Challenges: 

Building a web + mobile application takes time so I couldn't do it until the deadline. 

 

 

7. FINAL PRODUCT 

The final product consists in a prototype of application. I built the interaction design of it and 

some drafts of interface. With this project citizens will be able to: 

- Suggest their priorities of the city, where improvement is needed; 

- Vote, which suggestions need more attention; 

- Discuss suggestions and improve ideas; 

- Monitor ongoing projects; 

- Give feedback, evaluate existing systems or government decisions. 

With the platform, people will need a registration with documents to prevent fraud and                           

multiple accounts. The use can be divided in 5 categories: 

1. Identify a problem and share with the community: any person can identify an issue in                             

the city and open a request about it. It ill be possible to elaborate about the topic,                                 

attaching images to make the problem as clear as possible. Anyone can register an                           

issue any time. 

2. Identify solutions to an issue: after some filter, a problem can evolve to the next                             

category, where everyone can suggest solutions to it. In this stage, all citizens with                           

diverse skills (professionals or not) are welcomed to contribute in identifying possible                       

solutions. They don't need to mind about money or time, just think freely about                           

options. Different from the traditional platform, it is more inclusive since it involves                         

everyone. 

3. Discussing: this is the most important part of this platform. When someone reports                         

and issue or presents a solution, anyone can reply it, suggesting improvements for                         

the text or refining the idea. It will be also possible to vote to make relevant                               

comments visible and avoid spam. It will be also possible to schedule online and in                             

person events to better discuss the idea (invite friends on Facebook, streaming on                         

Youtube etc.). City Hall will add important information such as budget needed and                         

time to complete it.  

4. Voting: after City Hall and citizens have chosen the best solutions for the project, they                             

schedule the voting period. People will vote for their favourite solution. After a period                           

of time, the most voted solution is elected and City Hall can start working on                             

executing it. 

5. Follow solutions: people will be able to follow and supervise ongoing project. Also                         

feedback, complaints, evaluate the process and result of complete and in progress                       

solutions. 

The platform will provide tools to allow people to watch problems and solutions (email feeds),                             

vote/report posts and comments to prevent bad usage, invite friends to be part of it through                               

social networks (Facebook, Twitter among others). It is also important to add gamification to                           

the platform to make the experience better for the users, which improves public participation.                           

The more people involved, the better.